Throughout the 2025 NFL season, SB Nation’s Doug Farrar will write about the game’s Secret Superstars — those players whose performances might slip under the radar for whatever reasons. In this installment,
we turn our attention to Philadelphia Eagles reserve offensive lineman Fred Johnson, who has unexpectedly become the epicenter of the team’s total offensive turnaround.
There are certain teams that lean into 6OL personnel — six offensive linemen on the field — more than others. In 2024, the Buffalo Bills led the league by far in 6OL snaps, with Alec Anderson as the primary instigator. This season, when Jayden Daniels got hurt early and the Washington Commanders were left with Marcus Mariota as their quarterback, offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury went with heavy personnel as he had never done before with Trent Scott as the Sixth Man, and it worked very well.
The Philadelphia Eagles have been searching for their offensive identity all season long under first-year offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo, and it’s been a rough patch for the most part. We all know the issues here — the passing game has been far too easy to figure out, the run game isn’t working at all, and Patullo’s preference for spread formations has left the Eagles’ power-based aspects in the lurch.
We started to see a bit of a change in Week 7, when the Eagles, who had used 6OL personnel on three snaps in Weeks 1-6, pushed it up to 14 snaps in their 28-22 win over the Minnesota Vikings, and kept it going with 10 6OL snaps against the New York Giants on Sunday in the 38-20 win that put the Eagles at 6-2 on the season.
For Philly, the Sixth Man is Fred Johnson, the 28-year-old veteran who has bounced around the league from 2019 until now — he’s had stints with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Cincinnati Bengals, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Eagles (2022-2024), Jacksonville Jaguars, and the Eagles again when the team traded a seventh-round pick to the Jags for Johnson’s services on August 25. Early in the season, Johnson got some reps as Lane Johnson’s injury replacement at right tackle, but he didn’t really announce his presence with authority until Patullo stopped dithering around with specific shotgun and pistol stuff that didn’t work, and went heavy on intelligent smashmouth instead.
Against the Giants, it REALLY worked. Overall, Saquon Barkley and Tank Bigsby combined for 254 rushing yards on just 23 carries, with nine carries of 15 or more yards. In the first seven weeks of the season, including Jalen Hurts, the Eagles had a total of six runs of 15 or more yards — one by Hurts, one by Will Shipley, and four by Saquon.
This was an entirely different animal. Especially when Johnson was on the field.
“I think Fred does a really good job,” Sirianni said postgame. “Every time Fred’s in at tackle when he’s had to spell Lane or Jordan [Mailata], he’s just done a really nice job. I’m really happy to have him back because we really trust Fred. I think that talk was just about, ‘Hey, how do we get him on the field?’ It’s just like how you would want to get a receiver on the field or a tight end on the field or a running back on the field, like Tank. Same thing with Fred. He’s done such a good job, he’s been so productive when he has been in. We’re just trying to find a way to get him on the field, and he’s been really productive in that aspect as well. It’s just about trying to put your players in positions to succeed and getting your best 11 out there for whatever you’re seeing that week.“
Mailata, who has been lobbying for this version of the run game for a while now (more under-center, please!), couldn’t have been happier with the results.
“Yeah, 100 percent,” he said after the Giants game regarding the change in attitude of the offense when Johnson is on the field. “But sometimes, also, you have to be smart because now you know there are plays where we can throw it with Fred in. So you can’t be as physical.
“You’ve got to be a little bit more patient with your hands and sit back a little bit, because you know it’s a play-action. And especially in that second half, you kind of have to, I don’t want to say passive, but you just have to be more smart and more patient with your hands because if you know it’s a pass, you don’t need to go kill somebody. You don’t need to be all-out run attack because we’re now trying to see if they’re blitzing people because they’ve got to make adjustments too.
“And I think we did a great job of that.”
It’s a valid point. The Eagles were without A.J. Brown in the Giants game with a hamstring issue, so the ground-first approach made sense, but they’re also capable of big passing plays with Johnson and 6OL. We saw this against the Vikings, when Philly unexpectedly had Minnesota’s defense on a string. Whenever the Eagles went under-center with Johnson on the field, Vikings safety Harrison Smith would cheat up to help with what he thought would be a run play, which left the Vikings’ pass defense light and vulnerable. That’s how Hurts’ 79-yard touchdown pass to DeVonta Smith happened, and it was actually Smith who made Hurts aware of it.
The Eagles’ EPA splits with and without Johnson are absolutely hilarious. Per SumerSports, with Johnson on the field (78 plays), they’ve put up a total Offensive EPA of 12.31, and +0.1578 EPA Per Play. Without Johnson? +18.10 total on 380 plays, and an +0.0476 EPA Per Play. The sample size is an issue, but when you’re nearly four times as efficient with one guy on the field, that’s saying something.
The Eagles had been more efficient under center than in shotgun or pistol all season long, so it’s nice to see them finally going heavy on what works best. Patullo has taken more than his share of shots this season, and justifiably so, but it seems that this new version of the offense is the one best suited for everybody involved.
Fred Johnson is a product of the system to a degree, but his impact for the defending champs couldn’t be more obvious right now.
